Four natural processes have been described for the entry of large DNA molecules into bacterial cells. They are transformation, transduction, conjugation, and cell fusion. For none of these natural mechanisms, nor for any reported laboratory method, can a bacterial genomes be inserted into other bacterial cells resulting in new cells that have the genotype and phenotype of the input genome. Transformation of bacteria with DNA from other species is routine, but only with small segments of DNA. Using nucleoids isolated from gently lysed Bacillus subtilis protoplasts Akamatsu and colleagues have demonstrated same species co-transformation of distant markers. Their most recent analysis concludes that at least 30% of the 4.2 Mbp B. subtilis genome was recombined into the recipient cell.